well now ace, i probably like japanese a little more than you. having worked on japanese electro-mech equipment for 7 years i grew to appreciate the dependability and 'technician' friendliness of it. I have a 30 yr old japanese bike that i would ride just about anywhere anytime. because i can count on it, my soul transfers into the otherwise void bike because there are no performance and handling worries.
most people want dependabilty, that's probably why companies go there.
on the other hand, i like some things in other areas where people stay mainstream. i piddle with vacuum tube audio equipment while most like ic components. i'm into swapping out yugoslavian, russian, american, british and chinese tubes to get various characteristics on a vocalist, etc. you like taking apart and re-assembling bikes in the same manner. because of you, i'm starting to dig it, also.
Well now!
A "tube guy"!
I'm also a"tube guy".
I have a re-built and hot-rodded MFA Magus C tube preamp with NOS Amperex tubes in it.
And my amp is a custom-built one-of-a-kind that I had David Berning build for me.
It's a Single Ended Triode amp, which runs off 12vdc battery power so there is no "grunge" from AC powerlines.
It's choke-loaded instead of RC loaded, using a hand-wound choke that was done by David Berning when he made this amp.
It uses the SET-ZOTL output transformerless output stage, which eliminates the output transformers for impedance matching, and Berning's system is the ONLY Single-Ended-Triode amp with a single pair of output tubes that achieves this, with his ZOTL network.
It uses a pair of NOS Sylvania 6SN7-GTB"Chrome domes" for the input stage, and a matched set of hand-made Emission Labs Mesh-Plate Type-45 output tubes.
Produces 2.5 watts per channel.
I drive a pair of Lowther EX4 high-efficiency(102db/watt) single-drivers in quarter-wave tuned Voigt Pipe enclosures that I built myself, with a few tweaks.
And I use an analog-only source, comprised of a Teres 255 turntable, modified OL Silver Mk1 tonearm, Shelter 501 Mk2 cartridge, loaded thru a Mitch Cotter phono transformer.
Makes good music!
I used to be very heavy into the high-end audiophile scene, but not quite as much anymore, but I still enjoy it alot.
I know alot of guys inside the industry of high-end audio, but I haven't seen any of them for at least 6 years now.